there are so many things we love about maine, but one of the things we love the most is that we are at the shore or on a boat everyday. we talk of sailors, boating, and the lore surrounding them often...stories about seamen, pirates, old salts...so, seeing this shipwrecked vessel on monhegan island was like a dream come true for my children; they explored it, inside and out, with their friends. the tugboat, the D.T. Sheridan, ran aground in 1948, with the crew walking away unharmed. it turns out that part of another shipwreck (from 1957) lay upon the rocks too.

my family has been coming to maine for 12 or 13 years now...my children love it, mostly because we are outside ALOT. we spend alot of time outside in georgia, but since this part of maine is cooler and (almost) mosquito free, they roam outside most of the day.

recently, we went to monhegan island with some old friends who also have children and we explored all day. we went to cathedral woods, a beautiful hike through the woods. along the way there were fairy houses on either side. a woman we met said that she had been coming to monhegan for forty years and the fairy houses (different versions of them, of course) have been here that whole time...needless to say, the kids loved it. while we have made fairy houses at home before, some of these took it to a whole other level. they were magical!

there is a great mix of wildflowers and cultivated flowers here where we stay in maine...the dahlias do really well here, as opposed to home where it is too hot for them now. here, i gathered up some fresh and dried ferns, dahlias, cimicifuga, rue, and this great mauve queen anne's lace.

{all week, rinne will be writing posts from her annual family trip to maine.}

my family has been going to maine for the last 15 years. there is a large raspberry patch on the property and we go there every other day or so to pick berries. often, one of my parents walks my young sons down there to pick, and sometimes i go too.

it is a great way to start the day!

in years past, we have made jam or tarts from our harvests...and this year we made popsicles with lemon, mint, honey and raspberries.

but, truth be told, the raspberries don't always make it back to the kitchen; we often eat what we pick from our hands out in the field.

if you have ever went foraging for chanterelles you may know how hard these firecracker chanterelles are to find. throughout the decade of foraging, I have only found them once and there were only 6 or so tiny shrooms! they are super small....and spicy. the other day my husband spotted these from a drive in the north georgia mountians. he pulled over and we found hundreds of them! an exciting find!

spied this beauty on the way to a friend's house on a winding road. what a grand place it was in it's day! where i could peek inside i saw an upright coal burning stove in the parlor, and as you'll see in the kitchen, an amazing enameled cookstove, too heavy to move. there was an enclosed well off the kitchen. it was situated on a hilltop with old trees nearby for shade. one can only wonder what life was like there in the quietude of the mountains.

one day years ago a lady came to r.wood studio looking for work. she was 50 years old, but said she'd never had a job. she brought some pictures of her woodcarvings and the house she built with her. she's an old hippie who 'turned on, tuned in, and dropped out' in the sixties, and bought 200 acres of land in eastern tennessee. she started homesteading, building her house one room at a time (as needed), growing her own food, etc.

needless to say, i hired her on the spot!

since then i've been to visit the lady, lee, and her husband, john, a few times.here's some pics of their amazing home...

we are up in maine right now and there is a huge patch of nasturtiums growing right outside our house. while nasturtiums grow in the south, they often can get too hot, but here in the 70 degree temps of maine they are thriving. plus, there is a beautiful range of hues to these, and even some variegated leaves too...

plus, the petals are edible- these ended up in our salad later that night...